A Living Testimony

Hi everyone! I hope you guys are doing well. I've been waiting to find something to write about, and I've finally found it! I hope this encourages/challenges you today.

If I had to pick one word to describe yesterday, it would have to be crazy. So many things happened yesterday. From my check engine light coming on in my car, my gear shift light flashing at me, getting ranch dressing all over my pants, leaving my student ID at my house, and the day just not going the way I thought it would. Earlier in the day, before all this happened, I read something on facebook that my friend put up(thanks Candice!), and it said "A true test of heart is how one reacts when even the little things such as a few moments of time go differently than previously anticipated." When my car started to freak out, that phrase popped into my head and in that moment I had a split second to decide how I was going to deal with it. I could: 1. freak out and ruin the rest of my day or 2. acknowledge what just happened and proactively deal with it. Thankfully, and by the grace of God, I chose option number two. If I would have freaked out about my car, my attitude would have been terrible the rest of the day, especially when everything else happened. At the end of the day, I could honestly say that I had a good day, despite everything that happened.
What I'm not trying to do is boast about my reaction to the day, because believe me, there's no way that reaction would have happened without God. There have been days when I've freaked out about the smallest things, and ruined the rest of my day. And of course, when I freak out, there are people all around me, and I really don't feel like they saw Jesus in me at that moment. Lately I've been reminded so much that my life is a living testimony of who Jesus is, and me getting angry about something as small what happened yesterday was not something Jesus would get mad at. What I am trying to do is encourage/challenge you.

• Encourage: We get the awesome opportunity to live our lives out for Christ and be a living testimony of what he's done in our life, so let's live it out to the fullest!
• Challenge: People are going to be watching your reaction when life doesn't go as expected, so let's try to be positive instead of negative(definitely still working on this one, and will be for a long time).

Just like Paul said in Philippians 3:13-14, I don't have this all down and figured out, but I am pressing on and trying to daily live a life of Christ. I'm trying to take life for what it is, through the good and bad, and live a life that reflects Christ in me. It's really hard sometimes, but so worth it. I hope you have a wonderful rest of the day!